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DESCRIPTION:Every 11th of the month, activists rally and speak out against the restart
of Japanese nuclear plants despite the lessons of the Fukushima meltdown.
This month we will also demand that Congresswomen Nancy Pelosi and the
Obama administration stop pushing Japan to restart their fifty nuclear
plants.\n Two years after the meltdown, the "clean up" continues with
breakdowns and the Abe government continues to push with US Obama support
to re-open the 50 remaining nuclear plants in Japan. \nThe Japanese
government is also pushing to burn nuclear rubble around the country and is
refusing to allow for the evacuation of the children and people of
Fukushima. In fact the Japanese government and the IAEA is telling the
people of Japan that they can overcome radiation and the Fukushima area can
be "decontaminated" and that people should move back to within four mile of
the Fukushima nuclear meltdown.\nThey are also arresting and harassing
anti-nuclear activists in arrests around the country. The Japanese
government is making a clear effort to silence the truth about the
continued dangers.\nTwo Year On, Will the Lessons Of Fukushima Go
Unheeded?\nhttp://occupy.com/article/two-years-will-lessons-fukushima-go-unheeded\nMON,
3/11/2013 - BY PETER RUGH\n New 0 0 0 \n\nThe word Fukushima
translates into English as "happy island," and Diiachi as "beautiful." But
the triple nuclear reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima-Diiachi power station
on March 11, 2011, two years ago today, left a mess that continues to be
anything but happy or pretty for Japan's outraged citizens.\n\nHundreds of
thousands of people have taken to the streets since the disaster, calling
for the country to move off nuclear power for good. The largest
demonstrations occurred last summer, when 200,000 marched on then-Prime
Minister Yoshihiko Noda's residence demanding the government back off plans
to restart two of the country's 50 reactors, which had been offline since
3/11.\n\nIn Western Japan, protesters blockaded the Ohi plant containing
the first of the two reactors set to restart, reportedly forcing employees
to commute by boat. Seventy percent of Japan's population remains in favor
of a nuke-free future, but the government has, so far, ignored
demonstrators' demands. Over the weekend, large rallies were again held in
Tokyo commemorating the dark anniversary of the meltdowns.\n\nThe
earthquake-triggered tsunami that struck Fukushima on March 11, 2011, is
often blamed for the disaster. In reality, it was a nuclear industry
composed of lax government regulators, a cost skimming mega-corporation and
Japan's powerful mafia, the Yakuza, that managed to decimate much of
Northeastern Japan. It's a tale that nuclear-fueled nations across the
world could learn from if they wish to prevent future
Fukushimas.\n\nApproximately 17,000 people were killed when the tsunami
struck Japan's northeastern coast, but the deadly effects of the estimated
900 quadrillion becquerels of radiation released from the meltdowns will
take longer to reveal themselves. The first cases of illness induced by
radiation have only recently begun cropping up among Japanese children. In
February, authorities detected ten cases of cancer among children from
Fukushima Prefecture.\n\nThe region's economy is also fighting for its
life. Fields of Fukushima's famed oranges were left to rot on the vine and
now the land grows wild without hands to till it. As of two weeks ago, a
fish caught near the plant registered radiation levels 2,500 times the
government's recommended limit. It will likely take decades to restore the
region's agriculture and fishing industries. Experts have given cleanup
operations at Fukushima a centuries-long timetable.\n\nIn the immediate
wake of the disaster, a government spokesperson told reporters, “There
has been no meltdown.” Masataka Shimizu, president of Tokyo Electric
Power (Tepco), one of the world's largest utilities and the operator of the
crippled plant, described the tsunami as an “unforeseeable
disaster.”\n\nYet an internal report conducted by Tepco, three years
prior to the disaster, warned that the company should fortify the plant to
withstand waves higher than 5.7 meters. Company higher-ups dismissed the
reports' findings as unrealistic and did nothing. Waves nearly 15 meters
high eventually bore down on the plant.\n\nIn the weeks leading up to the
tsunami, Tepco also failed to inspect 33 pieces of equipment vital to
stabilizing the plant's reactors in the event of an emergency, according to
Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (now the Nuclear Regulation
Authority). The agency described Tepco's maintenance of the 40-year-old
facility as “inadequate” and its monitoring of equipment as
“insufficient.”\n\nStress tests conducted by regulators found breakage
in backup generators needed as a last resort to keep reactors cool. Those
generators would later be disabled by the waters of the Pacific, leading to
multiple meltdowns.\n\nAn independent committee authorized by Japan's
parliament to investigate the disaster reported that Tepco, along with
regulators, had “failed to correctly develop the most basic safety
requirements—such as assessing the probability of damage, preparing for
containing collateral damage from such a disaster, and developing
evacuation plans for the public in the case of a serious radiation
release.”\n\nWhen it came to stabilizing and decommissioning the
reactors, who did Tepco call? The Yakuza. Thanks to lax governmental
oversight, the mafia has long been entrenched in the Japanese nuclear
industry, providing plant operators with a steady supply of poorly trained,
low wage workers through subcontractor front companies to do the highest
risk jobs.\n\nSometimes referred to as "nuclear gypsies," nearly 90 percent
of Japan's nuclear plant workforce are contract laborers. The Yakuza draws
them from the bottom rungs of society; the homeless, the chronically
unemployed and members of Japan's outcast Burakumin minority. Sometimes
those stepping into hazmat suits are working off a debt they owe the
Yakuza.\n\nNuclear gypsies have been on the front lines of Fukushima from
the get-go. One worker told Reuters, "I get stomach aches. I am constantly
stressed. When I'm back in my room, all I can do is worry about the next
day. They should give us a medal." Instead they are rewarded with 840 yen
an hour, nearly half the typical wage a construction worker in the region
receives.\n\nVideo obtained by Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper last summer
showed one foreman ordering workers at Fukushima to put lead shields over
their dosimeters in order to doctor radiation readings. Further allegations
of health and safety violations abound. Outsourcing the clean-up job to
nuclear gypsies at the whip of the Yakuza has enabled Tepco to shift costs
and responsibility off their shoulders.\n\nFormer U.S. Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld employed a similar strategy during the invasion and
occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, outsourcing the tasks of feeding and
providing healthcare and protection to troops, even – in many cases –
the job of fighting the wars themselves.\n\n“The primary difference
between Tepco and the Yakuza,” a parliament member from Japan's rightwing
Liberal Democratic Party told The Atlantic's Jake Adelstein, “is they
have different corporate logos,” adding: “They both are essentially
criminal organizations that place profits above the safety and welfare of
the residents where they operate; they both exploit their
workers.”\n\nThe lawmaker speculated that the Yakuza might care more
about what happens at the plant since many members of the criminal
underworld involved in the decommissioning effort live in the area, unlike
Tepco's executives who are cloistered in Tokyo highrises 160 miles
southwest of Fukushima Prefecture. For them, he said, “Fukushima is just
the equivalent of a parking lot.”\n\nJapanese taxpayers continue to bare
the cost of decommissioning the plant and of keeping Tepco afloat. The
corporation received a $13 billion dollar bailout last year and has raised
rates by 10 percent on residential customers in order to pay back the
funds. The company estimates cleanup costs could run as high as $125
billion over the next 10 years and is seeking additional
funds.\n\nMeanwhile, the price of Fukushima in both economic and human
terms has turned many against nuclear power. Olav Hohmeyer, an
environmental adviser to the German government, reflected that the $3.7
billion in minimum reactor insurance that German plant operators were
required to pay would be merely “enough to buy the stamps for the letters
of condolence” should things go the way of Fukushima.\n\nGermany has
begun weening itself off nuclear power at the advice of than ethics
commission established in the wake of Fukushima. Eight reactors in the
country have so far been shuttered. A combination of renewable energy and
conservation has filled the gap, although murmurs are growing about a spike
in energy costs.\n\nAmerica, where corporations and not ethics commissions
decide policy, has taken the opposite route. In 2012, the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved two fresh reactor licenses at Plant
Vogtle near Augusta, Georgia. Also with NRC approval, General Electric, the
designer of the reactors at Fukushima, has begun construction of a new
uranium enrichment facility in Wilmington, North Carolina.\n\nPresident
Obama was forced to scale back plans to triple the number of reactors in
the U.S. after the Fukushima disaster, yet nonetheless he has remained
steadfast to his commitment to nuclear power, which comprises a powerful
part of his donor base.\n\nExelon, one the nation's largest plant
operators, has described itself as “The President's Utility.” Employees
of the firm, which also has coal and solar holdings, have handed Obama
nearly half a million dollars in campaign contributions over the years. In
return, the president awarded Exelon a $200 million stimulus grant from the
Energy Department. And, under terms described by The New York Times as
“extremely generous,” government lent the corporation $646 million to
build photovoltaic panels in California.\n\nNot that the corporation is
abandoning reactors for that great reactor in the sky called the sun;
they're simply diversifying with the president's help. If the recent
nomination of Ernest Moniz as Energy Secretary – a nuclear scientist as
well as cheerleader for the fracking industry – is any indication, we can
expect more atomic favoritism throughout the rest of Obama's second
term.\n\nThe NRC has estimated that a U.S. nuclear disaster on par with
Fukushima could cause more than $500 billion in property damage. Setting
aside a review of that assertion by the Congressional Governmental
Accountability Office -- which found that the agency had low-balled the
figure by half -- it's still quite a whopper.\n\nUnder the 1957
Price-Anderson Act, yearly insurance premiums required of plant operators
are caped at $375 million. The non-profit advocacy group Public Citizen
calculates this arrangement leaves taxpayers footing around 98% of the
bill. Originally designed to stimulate the atomic industry, which was then
in its infancy, the act was renewed in 2005 and has been padding the
pockets of powerful energy conglomerates going on six decades.\n\nOver that
time span, most of America's 100-plus reactors, originally designed to last
four decades, have entered their geriatric years. All the while, the NRC
has remained as committed as their Japaneses counterparts to the industry's
desire to keep costs low. The agency has granted hundreds of fire safety
exemptions to plant operators through a process it describes as
“enforcement discretion.”\n\nExactly how many of these exemptions
remains uncertain, since the NRC does not keep - or at least does not
release to the public - a detailed tally. According to a review of NRC
records by the investigative website ProPublica, fires occur on average 10
times a year at U.S. nuclear plants. Flames can sever the link between a
reactor and its control room.\n\nAnd Fukushima demonstrates what happens
when that umbilical cord is cut.\n\nWhy has Germany moved off nuclear just
as the U.S. is further ramping up its operations? For one, Germany has been
host to a decades-long anti-nuclear struggle, and people power seems to
have prevailed. In the U.S., likewise, people will have to hit the pavement
if they expect the lessons of Fukushima to be heeded on American
soil.\n\nIn Japan, the public's faith in authorities has severely eroded
since the fallout of Fukushima. The new conservative government of Prime
Minister Shinzō Abe has announced plans to restart six reactors by the end
of this year, and even to build new ones. Which is why, living under a
corporate-government alliance that refuses to heed the lessons and evidence
of the past, the Japanese public is putting its hopes in the only forum it
has left: the streets.\n\n\n
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/04/05/18734731.php
SUMMARY:Stop Restarting Of Japan NUKE Plants
LOCATION:50 Fremont St. San Francisco
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/04/05/18734731.php
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